State looking at sending 9B through county

Still no funding for that phase of construction

Northwest St. Johns County residents eager for direct access to the State Road 9B highway will get a look at the state’s new plan next month.

But the state Department of Transportation does not have any money set aside in the coming years for construction of the 9B leg in St. Johns County — a road that would benefit both commuters and the planned Bass Pro Shops mega-store.

Until the project gets funding, Florida 9B will remain out of reach from St. Johns County roads, even as construction in Jacksonville brings the highway tantalizingly closer to the county line.

The state has scheduled an April 9 public meeting to show the latest proposed route for 9B in St. Johns County.

St. Johns County Public Works Director Joe Stephenson said Bass Pro Shops’ interest in building a 104,000-square-foot store bolsters the county’s case for completing 9B. But he said the county has long viewed 9B as essential for residents.

“It’s incredibly important to the northwest sector of St. Johns County, with or without Bass Pro,” he said.

Bass Pro Shops officials did not return phone calls about how their plans to open a St. Johns County store by summer 2014 would be affected by the timing of work on 9B or any other roads.

Despite the lack of construction funding, Stephenson said the project is moving in the right direction because the state’s newest plan would take 9B all the way to St. Johns Parkway.

“We’ve gotten some traction over the last year,” he said.

Florida 9B begins at Interstate 295 on the Southside. The first leg between I-295 and Philips Highway will open to traffic in the summer. The second segment from Philips to Interstate 95 will start construction this year and be finished in early 2016.

The second phase will extend 9B toward the St. Johns County line, but it will stop short of connecting with Racetrack Road, which serves the northern side of the county.

The state won’t connect 9B with Racetrack because letting motorists enter and exit at Racetrack would result in backups on 9B, which in turn would clog traffic flow on I-95, said James Bennett, urban development transportation manager for the department.

He said Racetrack is just too close to I-95. The state’s plan for the third phase of 9B would continue the highway with an overpass spanning Racetrack. Motorists would be able to get on and off 9B a few miles farther south.

The St. Johns County portion of 9B would run through land owned by Gate Petroleum Co. Gate purchased the property in 2004 and planned to build a large-scale development with office parks and shopping centers. But Gate pulled back after the real estate market collapsed.

The company no longer intends to develop the property by constructing roads and office buildings, said Ken Wilson, president of GL National Inc., Gate’s real estate arm.

“That aspect of our business has changed dramatically,” he said. “We’re not going to be developers. We’re landholders. We were thrilled when Bass Pro announced because it means that site is still viable in the future for commercial development.”

If Bass Pro Shops built its store before 9B connects to St. Johns County, the store’s customers could still reach it from I-95 by exiting at Old St. Augustine Road and taking Bartam Park Boulevard, or exiting at County Road 210 and taking St. Johns Parkway.

The April 9 public meeting about the St. Johns County route for 9B is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. at the Courtyard by Marriott, 14402 Old St. Augustine Road in Jacksonville. A public comment period will be at 6:30 p.m.

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Bass Pro Shops will bolster St. Johns county, Not just through the property taxes but the lucrative 6% sales tax that will not likely be from only St. Johns County shoppers. An equitable trade considering how Duval has benefited from St. Johns County Shoppers for years and years.

The 9B hooray for St. Johns roadway extension in 2013 has about as much credibility as the rest of the checkered history of this particular stretch of land. Go back to 2004 and ask how Gates (read Peyton) could sell this land and less than one month later the County Commission approves the Twin Creeks DRI for some Boca Raton mega developer called Falcone. Joe Stephenson could probably tell you the details of local participation by Commissioners Bryant, Jacalone, Maguire, Stern and Staff recommendations by Ben Adams, Jim Sisco and Scott Clem. Where the average DRI approval process was little over a year, Twin Creeks had a special magic for it was to be a crucial link in both the 210 east-west St. Johns parkway and the 9B Jax beltway filling out our 'regional infrastructure for NE Florida.'

Then in 2007 Commissioner Tom Manuel took it upon himself to 'negotiate' buying the 9B land parcel from the defunct Twin Creeks DRI. Lawyer McClure and investor Robbins and Sheriff Shoar could probably give good insight how the effort to achieve right-of-way land ended in a FBI 'public corruption' probe of County operation and Commissioner Tom convicted as a felon for taking a bribe.

Now, in 2013, there is no suggestion of crime in the 9B extension announcement, but the news story of land use for a sporting goods store and DOT's decision that Racetrack Road could not have a 9B off ramp seem to hint at strange doings. Newcomers who ride the recently completed Nocatee parkway extension westward until it dead ends into US1 north probably wonder why Racetrack road still remains a two lane road going west toward Julington Creek. My guess is, foremost, the east-west parkway dream that rationalized approving one mega DRI after another in 2002-2006 crashed into the pragmatic realities of 'private funding' and three bean monte developers like Falcone. Now the next piece of the ultimate Rube Goldberg profile of 'hooking up' major multi-lane highways in St. Johns is that 9B will leapfrog Racetrack and have an off ramp at Durbin Creek parkway. This might ultimately work but it was certainly not in the previously planned and promoted grand schemes for parkways facilitating commuters in Julington Creek area..

Another wondering about the article (why made the front page of the Record in the first place?) is the little asterisk by the schema of the proposed 9B extension. When you read that the design for the any Durbin Creek relationship has not been done, let alone no money available for construction if there were actual plans, you know the St. John extension of 9B beyond the I95 is a long way off for St. Johns county. I would put this 9B extension part of transportation question in the same boat as the new bridge across the St. Johns river when trying to imagine the '360 degress of Jax Beltway completion.'

St. Johns seems fixated upon its part in the 'metropolitan partnership' and being Jacksonville's 'southern frontier' so I would suggest our portion of the multi-lane Hotlanta type highway system should be thought of in the same public policy light as the economics of JaxPort and supertankers from Asia or the Navy creating a new Norfolk.
The dramatic increases in population growth and job creation that this implies for 2030 and the infrastructure needs of the entire NE Florida 'region' might *fit* with the housing need projections of those Developments of Regional Impact approved a decade ago but may have nothing to do with running a good county government in 2013----or the actual socio-economic evolution of NE Florida in the next two decades.

The only constants we can be sure of is that change is a dynamic and the certainty that bad 'inevitably' guesses prejudice the way things actually turn out two decades from now. A decade ago St. Johns dug itself into a deep policy hole trying to follow mega developers and JaxUSA (formerly Cornerstone) dream weavers. Partially finished mega transportation plans for 'regional' super highways and a Department of Transportation using 2005 benchmarks for its 2020 estimates of reality are a continuing part of that problem of policy perception for St. Johns.